Privacy Coins

Privacy coins -

privacy coins are unique cryptocurrencies that allow a user to gain total anonymity when

making blockchain transactions. The identity of users and the origins of their transactions are

completely protected. These coins empower senders and receivers to remain anonymous

with different levels of privacy, like hidden wallet addresses and transaction balances. With

privacy coins, payments actually remain private.

Privacy coins take the anonymous nature and privacy ethos of Bitcoin to the next level.

When you start to gain an understanding of privacy coins, you can start to see that Bitcoin

itself really isn’t that private. Many cryptocurrency newbies believe that Bitcoin transactions

are anonymous. The truth is they are only pseudo-anonymous. Bitcoin protects some

information, but not all of it. Anybody who understands the technical aspects of how Bitcoin

transactions work and how the blockchain operates; can trace transactions.

History of Privacy Coins

This hole found in the crypto-market was quickly filled by aspiring privacy coins. DASH was

created as fork of the Bitcoin protocol, Bytecoin came into existence and then saw its price

streamline next to zero. The latter gave birth to Monero via hard fork, which has by far been

the most successful as proven by studies and history.

Laws & Regulations

The first statement made in this journal does have certain merit if funds are never transferred

from that wallet into an exchange account (or any platform) that has undertaken KYC.

Regulations outlined by the FATF have required exchanges to perform stricter KYC and

identification information to be attached to all transfers.

For aspiring ‘HODL’ers, a crypto purchase will likely be performed through an exchange.

Even if that individual then sends the funds to a cold storage wallet, that wallet will be known

to have been linked to that exchange account and hence that person.

The Future of Privacy Coins In general, the cryptocurrency market has mainly moved in

tandem with Bitcoin reigning above them all. As any market matures, sectors start to emerge

and decouple; one of them will become privacy coins.

As regulations clamp down on anonymity and turn blockchains into ‘mostly’ identified users.

Those seeking privacy will likely flock to privacy coins and with that boost of demand their

price can appreciate.

Whether exchanges will keep them listed or not is another story and that’s a decision that

may be enforceable by regulations.

Privacy coins:

1. Monero:

Monero is an open-source cryptocurrency that focuses on privacy, decentralization, and

scalability.

1. Zcash (ZEC):

Zcash is a decentralized and open-source cryptocurrency that offers privacy and selective

transparency of transactions using advanced cryptography.

1. Mina:

Mina claims to be the world’s lightest blockchain, powered by participants. Rather than apply

brute computing force, Mina uses advanced cryptography and recursive zk-SNARKs to

design an entire blockchain that is about 22kb, the size of a couple tweets, ushering in a new

era of blockchain accessibility.

With its unique privacy features and ability to connect to any website, Mina is building a

private gateway between the real world and crypto—and the secure, democratic future we all

deserve. Mina is stewarded by the Mina Foundation, a non-profit organization headquartered

in the Cayman Islands.

1. Horizen (ZEN):

Horizen is an inclusive ecosystem where everyone is empowered and rewarded for their

contributions. Horizen’s massively scalable platform enables businesses and developers to

quickly and affordably create their own public or private blockchains utilizing the largest node

network in the industry. Horizen’s Sidechain SDK provides all necessary components for

easy and fast deployment of a fully customizable blockchain.

Horizen’s native cryptocurrency, ZEN, is a mineable PoW coin currently trading on

exchanges including Bittrex, Binance, and Changelly. ZEN is integrated on major wallets

including Horizen’s flagship app, Sphere by Horizen, a multifunctional wallet that serves as

an interface with most Horizen products and services.

1. Verge (XVG):

Verge is a decentralized currency designed for users who value privacy. It improves upon

the original Bitcoin blockchain by using multiple anonymity-centric networks such as Tor and

I2P.

1. Secret (SCRT):

Secret (SCRT) is the native coin of the Secret Network. Secret Network is a decentralized

network of computers (secret nodes) that utilize trusted execution environments (TEEs) to

enable secure, private computation over encrypted data. TEEs function like a “black box” for

data processing, and they are utilized in all types of everyday platforms such as

smartphones and video game consoles.

Secret Apps – powered by “secret”, privacy-preserving smart contracts – are built with

CosmWasm smart contracts that are written in the Rust programming language and

deployed on the Secret Network.

The Secret Network blockchain itself is based on Cosmos SDK / Tendermint, meaning the

network has its own independent consensus, on-chain governance, and features like

slashing and delegation. It is secured by the native coin Secret (SCRT), which must be

staked by network validators and is used for transaction fees as well as governance.

1. NU Cypher (NU):

NuCypher is a decentralized threshold cryptography platform that provides data privacy,

access control, and other cryptographic services to decentralized applications and protocols.

The network currently supports threshold proxy re-encryption and is extensible to other

threshold cryptography primitives like threshold signatures (TSS), distributed key generation

(DKG), Shamir’s secret sharing (SSS), and proxy re-signing (PRS).

NuCypher is a layer 2 resource allocation protocol on Ethereum that uses a Proof-of-Stake

(PoS) mechanism to coordinate worker nodes.

NU is used for:

Staking to run a NuCypher worker node. Proper behavior is ensured via staking, with

malicious nodes subject to slashing penalties.

Participating in the NuCypher DAO, which controls network parameters and smart contract

upgrades. Users that are staking NU can validate DAO proposals.

1. Counos X (CCXX):

Counos X is a coin which has been developed according to Litecoin version 17.1. It was

designed to facilitate payments and clearing purchase invoices, especially for easy

exchange with fiat money. While its price is determined in the market, attempts will be made

to prevent its value from fluctuating too much.

1. Pirate Chain (ARRR):

PirateChain (ARRR) is a private send cryptocurrency. PirateChain uses ZK-Snarks to shield

100% of the peer-to-peer transactions on the blockchain making for highly anonymous and

private transactions.

1. Keeping Network (KEEP):

Keep is building infrastructure for autonomous private data on public blockchains, DApps,

and DAOs. A keep is an off-chain container for private data. Keeps aims to help contracts

harness the full power of the public blockchain — enabling deep interactivity with private

data.

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